Joshua Engroff

Articles by Joshua All articles by Joshua

• Decoding AI's Technical Jargon in AI Insider on 10/11/2018
  

  Try this experiment next time you're at a dinner party: Drop the term "AI" into the conversation and see what happens.

• On The Emotional Intelligence Of Machines in AI Insider on 09/27/2018
  

  In order for an AI to interact with a person in a way that feels truly authentic to the human, the AI must be able to convey empathy and detect emotion.

• Voices Of AI: 5 People You Should Know in AI Insider on 08/04/2017
  

  Often the best way to learn about a new field -- especially one that is both complex and noisy, like AI -- is to watch people who are truly proficient at it. What do they talk about? What do they spend their time working on, and what things do they ignore? Here are five people I have found particularly insightful on topics ranging from neural networks, to self-driving cars, social robotics, natural language processing and AI startup investing. I highly recommend paying close attention to all of them this year.

• Great Artists Steal: The Promise Of Creative AI  in AI Insider on 06/22/2017
  

  One particularly arresting moment in William Gibson's cyberpunk classic, Neuromancer, occurs toward the end when Case, the protagonist, meets the eponymous and anthropomorphized AI face-to-face.

• Future Sounds: Music's Evolving Role In Advertising in Media Insider on 06/02/2017
  

  Of all the art forms, few have the power to stir strong emotions as music. And few have had such an easy and fruitful relationship with advertising.

• Radical Transparency In Politics And Media in Online Spin on 05/19/2017
  

  In medieval Latin, the word "transparency" means "shining through," and in most modern contexts the word has a positive connotation, even in negative situations. The wafer-thin intellect of a President, for example, by letting the light shine right through, reveals neither the madcap stratagems of a next-gen Richard Nixon, nor the hard outlines of a consistently pro-business ideology, but a vast and vacillating willfulness. Transparency is topical not only in the political sphere, but also within the media business. As in politics, for media agencies, transparency is connected to alignment, to the responsibility of an appointed party (the agency) to always act in the best interests of the party it represents (the client).

• Exploding Old Contexts With AI in Online Spin on 05/05/2017
  

  According to IBM, we produce 2.5 exabytes of data each day. This is equivalent to 250,000 Libraries of Congress or 90 years of HD video - each day. This data exhaust results from our continual digital interactions, whether explicit - such as typing a search into Google - or implicit, like the location signals we give off as we move through the world with our smartphones.

• On Sarin And Cyberwar in Online Spin on 04/07/2017
  

  The events this week provided a condensed view of the past, present and future of weapons technology. Assad's attack on Tuesday used sarin gas, an old technology dating from 1938 (but no less horrible for being old). The U.S. response on Thursday used Tomahawk missiles, a tech dating from the 1970s. And the most instructive glimpse of what the future will hold came in the form of the (intended or unintended) symbolism of the timing of the U.S. announcement: right after President Trump's dinner with Chinese president Xi Jinping.

• The Ultimate Empathy Machine: VR And Social in Online Spin on 03/10/2017
  

  A common critique of VR is that it is will make us even more antisocial than we already are. But there are powerful counter-arguments against this. Chris Milk, probably the most accomplished film maker working in VR today, has called VR the "ultimate empathy machine." Experienced in VR, his movie "Clouds Over Sidra," about a 12-year-old Syrian girl living in a Jordanian refugee camp, carries an emotional power that is hard describe. The viewer does not watch the movie as much as experience it as a participant, with all distance between viewer and subject removed. That effect is impossible with 2D film.

• Highways Jammed With Broken Heroes in Online Spin on 02/24/2017
  

  The American romance with the automobile is the stuff of legend. Seldom has a product of mechanical engineering been as obsessed over by pop culture as the car. Just peek inside that 100-year almanac of American desires, hopes and fears known as The Movies and you'll see the wide range of protagonists it plays: friend ("The Love Bug,") enemy ("Christine"), accomplice ("Bonnie and Clyde," "Drive)", freedom fighter ("Mad Max"), outlaw, ("Smokey and the Bandit"), sarcophagus ("The Godfather), time machine ("Back to The Future") and sexual aid (every James Bond film).

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